Ten-legged bushrangers

Helix

socially distancing
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Christmas Island robber crab suspected of nicking expensive camera gear in late-night raid

One of the species, which can measure up to a metre wide and weigh 4 kilograms, has been accused of destroying and stealing a thermal-imaging camera belonging to a researcher studying one of the island's other native residents.

"[In the] morning when we went to the mango tree to retrieve the thermal camera — and this has been this has been going very well for weeks — there was no thermal camera anymore.


"The tripod that it was mounted to was knocked over, we saw claw marks on the tripod where the thermal camera was attached to the cord that ran from the thermal camera to the battery — [it] was mangled or claw marks on the battery.


"So basically, a big robber crab ripped the thermal camera off the spotting scope and mangled the cables so it came loose and just dragged it into the forest.'

Christmas Island is on my bucket list. There's the red crab migration, the golden tropicbird, but most of all, these armour-plated, tree-climbing rascals.
 
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frimble3

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So, just as well they are on an isolate island, or their homes/holes/hangouts would be knee deep in cameras, phones, purses, and anything else a person might drop while fleeing a giant crab.
"Now, Mama will freak them out, and you, my children, will scuttle out and grab the shinies!"